Animals derive their nutrition through a variety of feed sources. Some rely at least partly on forages including hay, pasture grass, and other plant materials. Commercial feeds for animals in confinement also offer nutrition formulated for different animals and specific purposes. Such feeds may be in the form of textured feeds, pellets, extruded nuggets, each with varying nutrient profiles, appearance and consistency. Diet formulations of forages and feed are commonly tailored to a specific animal to improve or maintain the animal's health. For instance, equine feeds may facilitate equine weight gain by incorporating additional sources of fat directly into the feed nuggets. However, high-fat feed is typically much less palatable to equine animals than similar feeds with less fat. Thus, before a commercial feed is formulated, animal feeding behavior is studied to determine whether the animal will accept the formulation. These studies are often conducted on animals in confinement. The confined settings may be similar to the settings the animal would otherwise experience, with feed intake being monitored by a technician weighing a remaining amount of feed after the animal has consumed feed from a feed supply dedicated to the animal. For instance, ruminants in group confinement may each be fitted with an RFID tag in a Calan gate system, which allows for the feeding of the ruminants on an individual basis by allowing the ruminant to have access only to their assigned feeding stall on the basis of the system sensing the RFID for the animal assigned to a feeding stall and permitting access, e.g., opening a small gate, to allow the animal to insert their head into a feeding station to feed. Animal feeding behavior can be affected not only by the feed formulation, but also by the presence of people, such as observers manually recording feed intake. The animal may be deterred from eating if the animal feels threatened by the person, or may be inclined to eat more if the animal has familiarity with the person. In either situation, the results of the intake by the animal may be inaccurate with respect to the animal's affinity, or lack thereof, to the feed composition offered. Therefore, there is a need to study feeding behavior of animals in confinement that solves the problems associated with studying intake of feed in the presence of humans.